


Through Another Lens

by Itsallfine



Series: Watch What They Photograph [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Bars and Pubs, Greg Lestrade & John Watson Friendship, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, No Spoilers, Oblivious John, Photos, Pre-Slash, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 03:38:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3795283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itsallfine/pseuds/Itsallfine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If you want to learn what someone fears losing, watch what they photograph.” — 	Unknown</p><p>Greg Lestrade gets a glimpse at the photos on John's phone. The contents say more than John intended.</p><p>Series now complete. This fic can stand alone, or you can read all three installments to get the full story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Another Lens

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [A través de otro objetivo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4108093) by [lasobrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasobrina/pseuds/lasobrina)



> So very many thanks to [May_Shepard](http://archiveofourown.org/users/May_Shepard) ([elizabeth-twist](http://elizabeth-twist.tumblr.com/) on tumblr) for her beta reading and support.
> 
> This little story is flexible. You can slot it into canon if you'd like (either pre-TRF or long after the dust from series 3 has settled) or you can simply let it exist. As you like!
> 
> Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it.

The double-chime of John’s mobile was a welcome relief from the travesty of a football game unfolding on the screen over the bar. His beloved team was being thoroughly trounced, and not even the cool taste of a decent lager on his tongue could drown out the wave of smugness he could feel from the seat next to him. Lestrade sat back with a satisfied little sigh, just loud enough that John knew it was intentional, meant to be heard. He pursed his lips and leaned to the side, digging his phone out of his back pocket. Two new texts glowed on the screen:

_Need a close-up photo of Lestrade’s hair. –SH_

_Send ASAP, if convenient. –SH_

John blinked, and read the text again. A third chime, and another text popped up:

_If inconvenient, send anyway. –SH_

A small smile tugged at the corner of John’s mouth. The particular phrasing wasn’t lost on him. He’d take the photo, he knew that already, but he had to make Sherlock work for it a little.

_Why on earth would you need that?_

John barely had time for a sip of lager before the reply came.

_Case. –SH_

_We don’t have a case on right now._

_Data for a cold case. –SH_

_Are you sure it’s not for blackmail? Or you aren’t standing in a corner somewhere watching? Is this a behavioral experiment?_

John snuck a quick look at the darkened corners of the pub. No sign of dark curls or ridiculous cheekbones. Another chime.

_Please. –SH_

He grinned down at his phone, a tiny thrill of triumph warming his chest.

“What’s he on about now?” Lestrade asked, leaning his elbows on the bar. He didn’t ask who he was texting, and John didn’t clarify—they both knew there was only one option.

“Something about a cold case. You give him something today?” John said, surreptitiously swiping over to his phone’s camera app.

“He texted me forty-two times over the course of three hours. It was self-defense.” Lestrade signaled the bartender for another round, and while his head was turned John made his move. He thrust his phone at Lestrade’s head, tapped the screen with his thumb to focus the image, and snapped the picture. The camera shutter sound was clearly audible over the din of the pub and the football commentators.

Lestrade whirled around and served him the same look he gave Sherlock whenever he did something socially inept at a crime scene. John gave his best ‘what are you going to do about it?’ smile, eyebrows raised, as he inspected his handiwork.

“Ah, damn. It’s blurry,” he said, fiddling with the photo settings to see if it could be corrected.

Then the phone was snatched out of his hands. John lunged for it, his fingers scrabbling on the slick case, but Lestrade stopped him with a hand on his chest and held the phone high over his head.

“What the hell, mate?” he said, eying the picture of his silver hair with a puzzled expression.

“It’s for Sherlock,” John sighed, as if that explained everything. Which, in a manner of speaking, it did.

Lestrade made a face. “That man is barking, and you aren’t much better.” John lunged for the phone again, feeling a bit like he was back on the playground with the taller kids in primary school, just as Lestrade thumbed the ‘delete’ icon. But John was too late; the photo disappeared with a cheerful little zooming sound, revealing the next photo in his camera’s history: a close-up of Sherlock glaring at the camera with an unidentifiable green substance smeared across one sharp cheekbone. John couldn’t help but smile at both the memory and the irritated fire in Sherlock’s eyes.

“What’s this from?” Lestrade asked with a laugh.

John smirked. “He wouldn’t stay out of my way while I was making dinner last night. He should really know by now that I don’t make empty threats.”

Lestrade snorted. “Yeah, I should think so.”

John held out his hand for Greg to pass the phone back to him, but instead he swiped over to the next photo in the queue. It was Sherlock again, standing in the doorway to the flat in mid-sentence, hoisting a jug of milk with a proud expression. When Lestrade shot him a questioning glance, John grinned.

“That was the first time he ever bought the damned milk when I asked him to. It was an occasion worth commemorating.”

“Was it the right kind?”

John rolled his eyes. “It was more about the effort.”

Lestrade chuckled and scrolled to the next picture. Sherlock in the middle of ranting at the telly, his knees drawn up to his chest, one arm flung out toward the screen.

“He was watching a documentary on bees,” John said. “Apparently the so-called experts were ‘blathering idiots who will surely be responsible for the destruction of England’s _apis mellifera_ population.’”

Things started to feel uncomfortable when the fourth picture popped up: yet another of Sherlock, his back turned to the camera as he played his violin in front of the window. John cleared his throat.

“He, uh…hates it when I take pictures of him. So I do it as often as I can, of course.” He narrowed his eyes and made a half-hearted grab for the phone, but Lestrade just moved his hand away and scrolled to the next picture. Sherlock, huddled in his chair with a cup of tea. The next one: Sherlock, his eyes and nose scrunched up, laughing nearly to the point of tears. The next one: Sherlock sulking on the couch, only his tangled mess of curls visible over the crumpled white bedsheet.

“I remember this one,” Lestrade said quietly. “You sent this to me a few weeks ago when you were begging for a case.”

John nodded. “He was a right terror that week. This was after he’d nearly destroyed the kitchen experimenting with different brands of lighter fluid. He’d never been in a strop quite that bad before. Desperate times called for begging.”

Lestrade hummed his agreement and swiped to the next picture. Sherlock, glaring down the barrel of a gun that was pointed straight at the camera, his eyes intense and bright. His lips were pressed together, almost like a kiss, half out of the frame.

“I’ll just pretend I didn’t see that one, shall I?” Lestrade said.

“Yeah, thanks for that.” John held out his hand for the phone again, but Lestrade moved on to the next picture.

“Well, there’s one that’s not Sherlock, finally!” Lestrade said with a grin, taking a pull from his pint. The screen showed a drawer full of socks, uniformly folded into pairs and arranged by color and thickness of material.

John flushed, licking his lips and looking away. “That’s Sherlock’s sock index. He gets quite irritated when you mess it up. I sent that photo to him as a threat when he disappeared for two days after we had a row about something or other.” He spun his pint glass on his coaster and snuck a glance at Greg out of the corner of his eye. Lestrade’s expression had lost its humor, and he swiped again and again, moving through the past few weeks’ worth of photos.

Sherlock, photographed from behind, walking in Regency Park with his coat billowing around him.

Sherlock, crouching to allow a stray dog to lick his face (and secretly eat from his cone of chips, John knew).

Sherlock, eyes pressed to his microscope in their kitchen, his long, delicate fingers adjusting the focus.

Sherlock, his arm around Mrs. Hudson at brunch, looking away in feigned boredom but with a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

With a jolt of horror, John suddenly remembered what the next photo in the queue would be and lurched toward Greg, nearly upending his pint in the process. But he was too slow, too late. His cheeks burned as Greg stared at the incriminating photograph.

Sherlock, glancing at the camera over a glass of scotch, his bow mouth mostly hidden behind the glass. His eyes were warm and smiling, amused…and now that John was looking at it through Lestrade’s outsider perspective, they seemed rather heated, too. He felt something low in his gut ignite at the memory of that random post-case evening, the heaviness of the air between them, the charge every time their knees brushed. The warmth of Sherlock’s rumbling chuckle, his smirk, his lips sealed around one thin finger that had caught a stray drip of scotch. His tongue tracing the rim of the glass to catch the last of the smoky flavor.

John pressed his lips together and took a deep drink from his pint, doing his best to drain away his rising anger and play it cool.

The silence from Lestrade made the rushing in his ears all the louder.

Greg cleared his throat gently, his voice low and hesitant. “John, are you two…”

John’s mouth went hard, and he looked away. “No. It’s not like that and you know it. God, can’t anyone just leave it?”

Lestrade was quiet again for a moment. He looked at the photo one more time, then handed the phone back to John with a frown.

“Sorry for invading your privacy like that. It was wrong of me.”

A pause.

“John…”

“Greg, stop right—”

“No, _you_ stop,” Lestrade cut in with a sharp gesture. “Who are you helping with this? What are you accomplishing?”

That brought John up short, indignant. He dropped his face into his hands. Took a deep breath in through his nose. Calm. Calm.

So he had a lot of pictures of Sherlock on his phone. They lived together, worked together, spent their free time together. It was to be expected, wasn’t it? The photos all made sense in the context of their life at 221b. It was only the outside perspective that made everything look so…intimate. And if Greg had scrolled farther back, he would have found pictures of other people, of John’s ex-girlfriends…

_Oh._

John blew out a breath.

“Can I take the photo of your hair now?” he asked Greg in a flat, tired voice.

Greg shot him a sympathetic look. “Sure, mate. Whatever makes him happy.”

John’s mouth twisted at that, but he brought the camera app back up and snapped a new photo. This one was perfectly in focus, the dim lamps of the pub washing Lestrade’s silver hair in a yellowy light. He sent the photo off, and then downed the rest of his pint in one long pull. Greg did the same.

“Go home to him, John,” Greg said. “And you know exactly what I mean.”

John swallowed, breathed through the swooping sensation in his stomach, and then pushed back from the bar. He dug a few notes out of his wallet and dropped them into the ring of wetness left by his pint glass, the edges soaking up the condensation.

John met Lestrade’s eyes for a fleeting moment, then looked away.

“See you later, I suppose,” he said. His fist tightened at his side, then relaxed, his fingers drumming against his thigh. Then the phone chimed.

_Took you long enough. –SH_

A laugh burst out of John, releasing something tight and coiled in his chest. His mouth turned upward of its own volition as he shot back a reply.

_There were complications. Tell you about it when I get home._

Greg clapped him on the shoulder. “See you later, John. I’ll be in touch.”

“Yeah,” John said, then after a moment: “Thanks, Greg.”

John shouldered his way through the game day crowd and pushed the door open, the chilled evening air a welcome change from the stuffy pub atmosphere. His phone chimed once again.

_When are you coming home? –SH_

John smiled.

_Right now._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been reading fanfic for fifteen years but have never, NEVER completed one of my own. This is a first, and it was terribly fun. I hope this small offering is worthy. I appreciate any comments and constructive criticism you're able to offer. 
> 
> Please visit me on tumblr at [librarylock](http://librarylock.tumblr.com/).


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